Tuesday, 16 December 2008

In contrast to the ever increasing memory available, a number of programmers are choosing to demonstrate their coding prowess by squeezing as much as possible into an incredibly tiny program. It has become a popular pastime to code an impressive graphical display in either 128 or 256 bytes.

Before zooming off to try this for yourself, why not check out some of the competition? Five of the best are listed below, and also my own contribution.

OKO by Ind. The coloured rings sway gently. Good use of colour.Interference by New Generation Crew. A fast moving interference pattern between two sets of rings. Supplied with source code.Ctverecky by RRRola. A chaotic, spiralling pattern. Only 93 bytes long. Supplied with source code.Corkscrewed by lord Kelvin - a smooth, gentle swirl slowly draws you in. Great use of colour. Supplied with source code.Color Dream by Digimind - a chaotic looking swarm of spheres. Impressive in motion.Plasma Wave by John Metcalf - my own contribution. A display of flowing plasma. Supplied with source code.

If there's a program you think I should have included, or you want to show off your own demo, please leave a comment below.

These kind of graphical things in particular are well suited for tiny programs, since they are fractal-like in their nature. Fractals are known to look fantastic in spite of being generated from very simple principles.

To be honest, a lot of demos that small are compressed. I have no clue how (probably not UPX), but I'm pretty sure the 4k cdak is compressed. Check out cdak, it's very impressive. And if you think farbrausch is good, look at Fairlight and CNCD's demos. You need a good graphics card though.